


cleave

by paperiuni



Series: Trifles from Thedas [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Comrades in Arms, Drama, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 08:25:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4514856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni/pseuds/paperiuni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bull takes an injury harder than Dorian expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cleave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [electricshoebox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricshoebox/gifts).



> Prompt fic from tumblr, posted here for archiving.
> 
> Prompt: Dorian x Bull, "kiss on the forehead"

In the violet sheen of Dorian’s spell wisp, the blood running from Bull’s scalp glistens black. He folds the bloodied rag and presses the clean part back onto the long scrape.

“It’d be best to stitch this.”

“I knew that,” Bull says, half muffled as he sits on a flat rock along the cave wall with his head bent forward. “What about the horn?”

“The horn, unlike your _head_ , does not bleed,” Dorian points out archly. Lavellan is busy with Cassandra’s arm, wrenched out of the shoulder socket. The wound that a giant spider’s mandible left on Bull’s head is less acute, its macabre appearance aside.

“Skin grows back. Qunari horns don’t.”

Dorian frowns, though the only observer is the wisp he summoned to illuminate his attempts at a healer impression. “Oh, all right. Hold this.”

Bull raises an obliging hand to keep the pressure on the bleeding for Dorian, so Dorian can beckon the wisp closer. The mandible drew a ragged stripe across the top of Bull’s skull--thank the Maker _that_ seems to be thick as oak--and gouged into the horn at the base. Dorian runs a thumb across the groove in the texture of the horn, almost like smooth-worn sandstone.

He’s seen Qunari with broken or sawed-off horns. If only one were to be cut off, he imagines, you’d have to devise a counterbalance for the remaining one. The bone under his hand has heft.

Bull picks at his healing injuries if they seem to be scarring too clean. Every other old wound is a boast or an anecdote waiting to happen over drinks. Why would a splintered horn be any worse?

Dorian can hear Bull breathe deliberately: in for a count, out for the same, in a rhythm as if to manage pain. He’s also seen Bull carry on fighting with bruised ribs and twisted digits and slough off blows that’d fell a stalwart human at once.

The tip of his forefinger almost sinks into the gouge. He stifles the urge to grab the horn above the groove and see if it withstands a tug.

“Half an inch,” he hazards. Then, “This matters to you, no?”

“Wouldn’t like to lose it.”

The bleeding of the scalp wound is turning more sluggish. Dorian finds the last clean part of the rag, guiding Bull’s hand back down so it’s out of the way.

“It wouldn’t add to your storied scars?” He may need to leave the suturing to Lavellan’s defter hands. “Now that I think about it, it strikes me as a mercenary fashion, even.”

Bull makes a sudden, harsh grunt. “Not in my damn company.”

Dorian weighs the ensuing silence. Bull’s shoulder comes to rest against his front; he’s standing with one leg between Bull’s knees, to get at the injury. A still, laden moment creeps by. There _is_ a story here. He must ask for it later.

“It might be braced with a metal band,” he says then. “Dagna would take it as a challenge.”

“You think?” A jot of good humour returns to Bull’s tone.

“I do think.” Dorian wets another square of cloth with water from a skin and begins wiping off the leftover blood. “Veridium, perhaps? It’d go with your eye.”

Almost too low to hear, Bull laughs into his shoulder, his fingers splayed low on Dorian’s back. Dorian leans down and presses an uninvited, unhurried kiss on his good temple. He dwells there a moment to feel the deep furrow of Bull’s knit brows loosen.

“Dawnstone for a holiday one?” Bull says against Dorian’s cheek. Dorian chuckles more with relief than with amusement.

“If you must. I may have to pretend I don’t know you.”

Bull keeps his hold of him. Dorian lets him, soft and unspeaking, until Lavellan appears from around the bend in the cave wall, her medicine bag in hand.


End file.
